Court: Second Amendment also covers those in US illegally

[HoneyBadger]

Wait, what? How does a noncitizen, present in this country without legal status, have any claim whatsoever to any of the rights (and the commensurate responsibilities!) of a citizen or person with legal residency status? Seriously, are the judges of the 7th Circuit that fucking stupid?

Well, ALL people have these rights, but our Constitution only establishes the government's role to protect the rights of US citizens. A right is fundamentally something universal that is not granted by a governing body.

Interesting observation: I've looked at about a dozen constitutions and the US constitution is the only one that I found that actually says what the GOVERNMENT is allowed to do. The rest all specify what the PEOPLE are allowed to do. i.e.: Our constitution recognizes that the government's role is to protect the rights of its citizens whereas other constitutions attempt to define the "rights" that the citizens will be allowed to have.

And this is why I shouldn't read threads from bottom to top:

Believing that the government hands out rights to specific people is a terrifying thought path. I encourage anyone who feels that way to seriously re-evaluate what they believe rights to be. Our country was based on the idea that people are born with certain unalienable rights, and people who are within America will not have those unalienable rights restricted by our government. I wouldn't feel too far off by stating that is pretty much the whole point of the United States of America.

Irving, you highlighted exactly the philosophical problem that our founders sought to solve. Fredrick Bastiat's The Law contains a very logical and well-reasoned approach to the origin of rights and why the government cannot effectively issue them, but how the government's primary role should be protecting the rights that all people inherently have. It's a short and fairly straightforward read, but something that should be a part of everyone's personal library.